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Drury University sophomore Ryan Way runs in the snow covered track of Harrison Stadium on Jan. 21, 2016. Way, who is a member of Drury's cross country and track teams, runs outside every day, no matter the elements.
Guillermo Hernandez Martinez, Guillermo Hernandez Martinez/News-Leader

Lyzz Buford opens a package of hand warmers as she walks to her storage unit on Feb. 28. Despite the snow, she had to get her things that day because it was the end of the month and she couldn't pay for the next month.
Valerie Mosley/News-Leader

Chantel Alberhasky (left) and Crista Hogan run on Meadowmere Street in the snow on Wednesday, March 4, 2015. Winter weather hit the Ozarks in the morning bringing with it sleet, several inches of snow and freezing temperatures.
Nathan Papes/News-Leader

Larry Beasley, right, tosses a fresh bale of hay over to Ken Lumley. The farmers were getting hay from friend Nevin Breshears to take to their horses and cattle. Lumley purchased a generator yesterday to thaw the water in his horse trough. This photo was taken during the January 2007 ice storm.
Christina Dicken/News-Leader

Joining his colleagues, Private First Class Danny Hensley of National Guard 276 Egineer Comany cuts limbs for residents on Fay St. near Turner Ave. This photo was taken during the January 2007 ice storm.
News-Leader file photo

Stranded cars, like this one at US 65 south of Kearney St., were not an uncommon sight as morning rush hour traffic found streets covered with several inches of snow in this 1998 photo.
Bob Linder/News-Leader

A pedestrian makes better progress than her automobile counterparts along Glenstone Ave. at Seminole St. A predicted snowstorm struck earlier that predicted bring Christmas traffic to a gridlock in southern Spirngfield in this 2002 file photo.
Bob Linder/News-Leader

Jessica Hardin, bottom right, is among the crowd of people who spend the afternoon sledding down a decline at Doling Park in Springfield, Missouri, Tuesday, January 27, 2009.
Photo by Jerome T. Nakagawa/Springfield News-Leader
Jerome T. Nakagawa/News-Leader

Missouri State student Ryn Mos, 18, hides behind her friend Taylor Endsley, 19, as Calvin Bremmerkamp, 19, tosses a snowball at them during a snowball fight at Missouri State University on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014.
Nathan Papes/News-Leader

Correction: Some photo credits to the History Museum on the Square referred to the museum by its previous name in an earlier version of this story.

If you think it's been cold this winter, count your blessings.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 12, 1899, Springfield was brought to its knees by a withering cold spell so severe that firefighters carried buckets of coal oil and bundles of kindling to light fires around frozen fire hydrants.

In hedgerows, entire coveys of quail huddled together and froze into dead, feathered balls of ice.

"THE WORST OF ALL," declared the Springfield Leader-Democrat's lead headline a day later.

"Thermometer Drops to 29 Below in the Ozarks"

"Springfield the Most Frigid Point on the Map."

Indeed, that temperature still stands as the coldest ever recorded in Springfield, followed a day later by a 40 below reading in Warsaw, Missouri — the lowest temperature Missouri has ever documented.

The Fairbanks house in Springfield during frigid weather in 1899.(Photo: History Museum on the Square)

The brutal weather was part of a historic gush of arctic cold that pushed as far south as Tallahassee, Florida, which recorded an unheard-of 2 below zero reading that still stands as the Sunshine State's all-time record low.

That same day, Fort Logan, Montana, was paralyzed by a reading of 61 degrees below zero. The arctic outbreak set record lows that still stand 119 years later across much of the southern and eastern parts of the country.

The headlines in the Springfield Leader-Democrat the day after Springfield dropped to an all-time low of 29 below zero on Feb. 12, 1899(Photo: Newspapers.com)

In Springfield, livestock froze to death on farms and peach orchards perished.

"This is the coldest weather ever recorded in this region," the Leader-Democrat reported. "Citizens who have lived here 60 years tell of some cold weather, but they are a unit in the declaration that they never before saw Ozark mountain weather like this. Private thermometers in exposed positions dropped to as low as 34 degrees below zero early in the morning before sunrise."

Ice skating on Doling Park lake a few days before Springfield dropped to 29 below zero on Feb. 12, 1899.(Photo: History Museum on the Square)

Several hundred people suffered serious frostbite, and the local coroner was called to a house at 303 E. Madison St.

"An infant child of Magie Carter, colored, died Saturday night at 303 East Madison Street," the newspaper reported. "It was generally believed yesterday that the child froze to death, but the mother of the child is of the opinion that death resulted from other causes."

Chart shows how intense the cold was during the February 1899 arctic blizzard.(Photo: Journal of American Meteorological Society)

"Nobody ventures away from the fire except on business that can not be postponed. Street car men have suffered almost beyond endurance. Motorman Jones of the Boonville street line stood at his post Saturday afternoon until he was badly frozen. He was compelled to go to his home to thaw himself."

The newspaper made a plea for help for the poor.

"Fuel, food and clothing are demanded as life savers," the paper wrote. "Many destitute families are scarcely able to keep alive."

An ice-covered downtown square in Springfield in 1899.(Photo: History Museum on the Square)

"Every fire plug in Springfield is probably frozen solid," the newspaper noted. "This is the startling revelation so far as investigation has been made."

Even after starting a fire around a fire hydrant, fire crews had trouble defeating one house fire in town.

"Even when full pressure was on, the flow is comparatively feeble, owing to frozen conditions," the newspaper wrote.

Fuel delivery companies worked day and night to fulfill orders. It was so cold that a local ice dealer took the day off.

"G.B. Puller, ice dealer, says his ice is 14 inches thick, but the work of harvesting has been suspended until the weather moderates," the newspaper wrote. "Thus the ice man has been beat at his own game."

A view of the downtown square in Springfield in 1899.(Photo: History Museum on the Square)

A train from Springfield to Memphis was canceled until the weather warmed. Peach and pear growers in the Springfield area quickly feared the worst.

"If a single peach bud in southwest Missouri blooms next spring some of the fruit men of Greene county will be surprised," the Leader-Democrat reported.

"Most of the trees, as well as the buds, have been killed, some of the local fruit growers believe."

"The apple crop was not affected by the cold weather, the fruit men believe. Mid-winter freezes never kill apple buds in this latitude," the newspaper reported.

Two days after Springfield's all-time low, the newspaper reported on more strange events related to the deep freeze.

"Backbone of Winter Has Been Severed," the main headline proclaimed. "Agony Ended Here and Italian Sunlight Surmounts."

"In Springfield today there is atmosphere akin to calmness," the newspaper noted. "The sun shines brightly. The snow is melting mush on the sidewalk. Typical Ozark climate is in sight."

It wasn't just humans who suffered.

"Much of the small game has been destroyed by the cold weather, the farmers say," the newspaper wrote. "The quail have suffered most, thousands of these birds having been frozen to death in the fields and woods. Whole coveys are found stiff in a bunch where they froze at night. ... Rabbits are still coming into the market, though their condition is not the best since the winter became so severe."

The Springfield Leader Democrat's front page a day after the all-time record low hit the city.(Photo: Newspapers.com)

A summary of the Great Arctic Outbreak by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency notes that "ice was even witnessed flowing down the Mississippi River, past New Orleans, and into the Gulf of Mexico. And, a one-inch thick layer of ice formed at the mouth of the Mississippi in East and Garden Island Bays in Louisiana."